


Drawn From Life

by littlerhymes



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Brainwashing, Dubious Consent, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1494514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I remember," Bucky says, but that's not entirely true. Set after The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawn From Life

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[translation] Drawn from Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388362) by [evitas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evitas/pseuds/evitas)



> Thank you to SQ (proteinscollide) for beta-reading!
> 
> 2/10/14: Thank you to **evitas** for translating this into Chinese!

In the end it's Bucky who finds Steve, not the other way around.

Steve comes home late after doing a favour for Sam - attendance at a VA fundraiser where he smiled and shook hands for hours straight. He freezes when he finds Bucky tense and coiled by the open window, ready to jump back out again if Steve so much as looks at him wrong.

"I remember," Bucky says at last, his voice rusty. "I know you. Steve."

That's all Steve needs to hear. His strides eat up the room and then he's holding Bucky like he's never going to let him go. Slowly, Bucky's arms reach up until he's holding him right back.

*

 _I remember_ , Bucky said, but that turns out to be not entirely true.

There are gaps in his memory, moments lost, chapters ripped out whole. Bucky remembers where they went to school and the classes they shared, but not the name of the girl he had a crush on in sixth grade. He knows every turn in the route from their place in Brooklyn to the local deli, but not that his favourite order was a Boston cooler.

Steve thinks it must be like when you know the tune of the song and you can't stop humming it, and the lyrics are always _just_ on the tip of your tongue. 

He says that to Bucky one time and Bucky's mouth twists but he doesn't deny it. "So, what's that mean?" he says. "Gonna be your job making sure I remember the words?"

That's exactly what it means. Every day that Steve spends with Bucky is a little more that Bucky remembers. Together they fill in the blanks, the verses, one line at a time.

It's not easy. For every shared memory and smile, there are moments when Bucky just goes away, his body right next to Steve but his eyes all blank, shut down. Those moments scare the hell out of Steve. But they pass. 

It's far from easy, but Steve has never been scared of hard work. Hard work is something he knows how to do.

*

Sam stops by Steve's, after their morning run. He hesitates just a fraction as he walks into the apartment, scanning the angles with a professional's eyes.

"He's not here," Steve says, before Sam can ask. "He's gone out." He knows Sam doesn't trust Bucky, thinks that he's unstable even if he's sincere. 

"No?" Sam leans against the kitchen counter, carefully casual as he gulps from a glass of water. "Thought he was going to be laying low. Thought that was part of our agreement." 

_Our_ meaning him and Natasha, Hill and Fury, the only people Steve's trusted so far with this secret. 

Steve looks up, unable to keep the edge from his voice. "I'm not his keeper." He can feel his shoulders hunching up defensively and forces himself to hold them down, to keep his voice calm. "He's just out. Walking. Getting used to being in the world again, that's all."

Sam raises an eyebrow, as though to say, _and you believe him?_

The problem is how much he wants to.

*

Steve and Bucky walk DC together, to the Smithsonians and the monuments, and the bars and the parks and second-hand record stores. They walk and they talk and they tell each other stories, Steve trying to give Bucky back the life he'd once had.

They go to a bar, a dive where the crowd's split between old men who've been drinking there for decades and young people who go there because it's cheap. No one gives them a second glance as they settle into a booth.

"Remind you of anything?" Steve says, looking up from his beer, casual as saying 'nice weather, huh?' This is how they start.

"Yeah." Bucky squints, still too pale and gaunt for Steve's liking, though that's slowly starting to change. He scans the crowd, eyes flickering. "Yeah, this reminds me. That girl," he says, nodding across the room. "She reminds me of a dame I dated this one time. What was her name? Carol? Clara?" He clicks his fingers, frowning.

"Christine," Steve says, prompting. 

"Oh yeah, Christine." Bucky rubs his chin, looking thoughtful. "We met her in a place like this, didn't we? And I took her to a movie…"

"You did," Steve says, grinning. "But you were so late picking her up that she wouldn't talk to you all night. Me and her best friend had to sit in between you, passing messages like a couple of schmucks."

"I was just real smooth, wasn't I?" Bucky says, ducking his head, laughing.

This is how they play it. Like throwing a ball back and forth, the story building between them, and if Bucky fumbles then Steve's right there to pick it up again.

*

Natasha is much more blunt than Sam. "I don't trust him." She shrugs under Steve's stare.

"If you're not gonna listen to me," Sam says, the voice of reason as always, "at least tell me you'll listen to her?"

After all they've been through and what they know, he owes it to them to hear it out. "Fine," Steve says at last. He looks away, out the window, avoiding the sag of relief in Sam's shoulders and Natasha's cool nod. 

"Do what you have to do. But I don't want to know about it until you're certain."

*

Steve draws Bucky, over and over. 

Starting with sketches in light pencil, then pressing down harder to create shade and line and form on what was once a blank, white page. Like matching words to a song, this is a metaphor that Steve likes too - as though he's helping Bucky give shape to what was always there, just waiting to be remembered. 

That's one way of looking at it, anyway.

*

Steve is not Bucky's keeper and there's no lock in the world he could set that would hold him. 

He slips in like he always does: after midnight, sideways through the window and never through the door. He wordlessly sheds boots and weaponry and armour on the carpeted floor before sliding into bed, next to Steve, close enough to touch. 

(That was Bucky's idea too. "I get nightmares," he said, the first night, as though that explained it all. Steve had just nodded and let it happen, afraid if he said anything that Bucky would run, or he'd wake up.)

Except this time he crawls into bed and straight into Steve's arms, pressing his mouth to Steve's. He's clumsy, cautious, as though he hasn't kissed a hundred dames before, as though kissing is a thing he's learned from an instructional manual. It must be one of the things he's forgotten and has yet to recall.

"Bucky," Steve says after a moment, turning his face away not because he doesn't want it but because he wants it too much, trembling with the effort of holding still. Sensing the hesitancy in Bucky's touch, the thought crosses his mind too that maybe this is Bucky's way of saying thank you. "Look, you don't have to-"

"But I want to," Bucky says roughly, and that's good enough for Steve to let himself give in to what he wants so badly. 

He kisses Bucky over and over, and it's easier each time. Easier and sweeter and achingly good, until the feel and taste of Bucky's mouth starts to seem familiar instead of something new; and Steve thinks he can't wait for the day when this, too, is a moment they can recall together, a story they can tell.

Again, it's Bucky who makes the next move, reaching down to tug at Steve's boxers. Except this time Steve does ease back, catching Bucky by the wrists, not wanting to rush the sweetness of this moment. "What's the hurry?" he says, smiling. "I'm not going anywhere. We can take our time."

Bucky trembles all over for a moment, eyes closed, and for a moment it's like he's gone, like he's somewhere deep inside his head where Steve can't reach him. Then he opens them again, and he's just Bucky, smirking. "Guess you're right," he says. "Gotta save something for next time."

So they kiss some more, until they fall asleep, and the next thing Steve knows it's morning.

Later, Steve will be grateful for that at least.

*

Natasha calls Steve on a secure line. "Sam and I need to talk to you," she says, all business. "It's urgent. Make sure you're not followed." 

They sit him down and tell him everything. 

Afterwards, the pity in their eyes makes him want to flinch. 

Natasha's voice is gentle when she says, "You've got to keep it together for a few more days, that's all. A few more days and then it's all going to be over."

Sam puts his hand on Steve's shoulder. "I'm sorry. We're here for you, Steve, you know that. You don't have to do this alone."

They're trying so hard and they care so much, so Steve just nods and tries to say the right things, even stumblingly tries to thank them. 

Later, he won't remember a single word he said.

*

As far as Natasha and Sam can figure, what happened was this:

Hydra was never going to let the Winter Soldier just walk away - not their perfect soldier, their perfect weapon. And knowing his history, they always had a back-up plan. 

Three days after he hauled Steve out of the water, he was retrieved by the last remaining Hydra cell in DC. They took him in, wiped him clean, and wrote him over. 

From countless old newsreels and photographs, from decades of S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence and Hydra surveillance, they built a blueprint and loaded it direct into the Soldier's head. They told him what to say and how to say it, where to go and what to do, then pointed him in the right direction and pulled the trigger.

*

Down in the park again and they sit in the shade of the trees, watching kids playing baseball. Bucky leans back, recalling another story.

"Reminds me of that time we saw the Phillies-Dodgers game in '41." He launches into the one about the guy with the big mouth in the row behind them, how he'd spilled soda down Steve's shirt and Steve had to haul Bucky back from throwing a punch. "Boy," he says, shaking his head. "You were madder at me than you were at that guy."

"Yeah," Steve says quietly. 

It's a good story. A good memory. It's exactly as Steve remembers. 

"Yeah," Steve says again. His fingers clench in the grass, digging up dirt, and if it weren't for his super-soldier cast-iron guts he'd probably be retching. 

Since Natasha and Sam told him about what they'd found, he's been replaying the past few weeks in his head and there's nothing, nothing at all, that can't be called into question. Even when Bucky had - when he'd touched Steve and said - 

*

 _I remember_ , the Winter Soldier said, climbing in through the window. _I know you._ And Steve had fallen over himself wanting to believe that this was true.

 _But I want to_ , the Winter Soldier said, and sold the line with a kiss. And Steve had let himself take what he'd thought was being freely given.

Each time Bucky comes back to Steve he's a little better, a little more like the Bucky he remembers. Or more accurately, he's more like the Bucky that Steve wants so desperately to exist. 

Because whenever the Soldier leaves, it's not to walk the city or to see the sun. He's checking in as ordered. _Mission report._ Hydra pulls out whatever intel they can, sifting for signs of a resurrected S.H.I.E.L.D. or the organisation that will, inevitably, replace it. Then they set to work refining their model.

They rewrite the Soldier over and over, designing him in the shape of Steve's desires.

What did Zola say? That you have to make the people believe it's their own decision, that they have to willingly choose their own defeat. Hydra had it all figured out long before Steve ever did. Realising that in time, that in love, he might have been brought to a point where he'd have done anything for Bucky. Anything at all. 

*

He leans over Steve's shoulder and Steve tries not to recoil from the contact. "That how you see me, Steve?" he says, nodding at the sketchpad. 

It's a drawing from three days ago showing Bucky sitting by the window, looking thoughtful but content. A scene from a life that never truly existed, just a part in a make-believe with Steve as unwitting participant.

"Thought I was better looking than that," he cracks, a flawless imitation of everything Steve ever wanted.

Steve forces a smile. He turns his head and lets the Winter Soldier's kiss hit the side of his mouth. 

*

Two days later Bucky leaves Steve's place again. This time they're ready. 

There's a tracker in the Soldier's arm, the same one Hydra used to scoop him up after Insight. They trace the signal - thanks to Stark Industries, courtesy of Maria Hill - back to a base in a bunker just outside of DC.

There are twelve Hydra agents armed to varying degrees, three points of entry, a high-tech security system triggered to go to red alert on detection of intruders. Couldn't be simpler. Once the system's disabled, they go in hard and fast, taking Hydra by surprise. Steve takes point, Sam covers the rear, and Natasha glides in with both guns blazing. 

While Sam and Natasha are securing the central area, Steve works with forceful, urgent speed to reach the laboratory in the back. He busts down the door and finds two agents inside, guns blasting. He ducks behind a concrete pillar, waiting until there's a lull in the gunfire, then takes them down in turn, one with the shield and the other with a roundhouse kick. The fight is over in seconds.

Then he drops his shield, steps over their unconscious bodies, ignoring everything except the chair in the back where the Soldier is still strapped in. 

The Soldier is shaking in his bonds, his eyes glazed over, a pale froth trickling from the side of his mouth around a strip of black rubber. The device clamped around his head is still hot to the touch - whatever they've done to him, Steve's only moments too late to stop it. 

Steve's hands tremble as he rips the thing away from the Soldier's head and pulls out the mouthguard. He hears his own voice, shaky and afraid, saying, "Bucky. Bucky, it's me, I'm here."

The Soldier just stares. "Who's Bucky?" he says, the words coming out slow and slurred. "Who are you? Do I know you?"

Steve looks away, swallowing hard. He's been wiped, and not yet rewritten. 

The thing is - even if the Soldier had said _yes_ , if he'd said _Steve_ , it wouldn't have been real. It's better this way. Cleaner. It's the truth.

Despite knowing this, despite knowing that the alternative is sickening and makes his stomach churn, in that moment the better option still feels much like a defeat.

"No," Steve says, at last. He shakes his head, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. "I mean. You did, once, a long time ago." 

"What?" 

"Nothing." Steve shakes his head again. "It's nothing."


End file.
